A blog on Cuddalore. CuddaloreOnline contains 'developement oriented' news about Cuddalore, new projects that can be taken up for the development of the town, status of ongoing projects, comments and photographs of Cuddalore. You can also find posts dealing with several aspects of urban planning & design and other issues of general interests (esp.environmental issues). Subscribe for newsletters and join the CuddaloreOnline group.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

CUDDALORE: Residents of Eachankadu and Kudikadu on Wednesday staged a demonstration in front of the Collectorate here urging the authorities to shift polluting units elsewhere from SIPCOT Industrial Estate.

They were led by Senthil Kumar, district secretary of Manitha Urimai Padhukappu Maiyam. The protestors said that unmindful of health hazards posed by the polluting units, the officialdom was permitting these units to continue operation.

For instance, a drug and chemical company was sealed when a bromine leak a month ago led to hospitalisation of 71 people. It had resumed operation without any assurance to the people that similar incidents would not recur, the protestors alleged.

According to Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board sources, the company had obtained court permission to operate its units except an unauthorised research and development wing, where the leak occurred.

The protestors further said that untreated effluents being discharged from chemical, drug and dyeing units in the industrial estate had polluted the environment and soil, besides affecting marine life.

They alleged that through enticement of offering jobs, the companies were trying to create a rift among local people and diverting their attention from pollution problem.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Cuddalore, 25 April 2011: Attempts to reopen Shasun Chemicals were stopped by the protests of angry villagers in Kudikadu panchayat in SIPCOT Cuddalore. Noticing activities in the factory in the night of 22 April about fifty villagers blocked the gates of the factory on the morning of 23 April. The villagers demanded stop work at the factory pending investigations into the last month’s Bromine gas leak. They also demanded action on the top management of the unit for illegally operating the unit. According to the sources, company called the local police to intervene and the police mediated between the unit and the villagers. Upon assurances that the concerns of the residents would be addressed in a few days by the management and the factory will not reopen until then the crowd dispersed.

The residents of Kudikadu panchayat are currently holding a village meeting to discuss the next steps in their campaign against Shasun Chemicals.

Last month about 300 people from the Kudikadu panchayat were affected when Bromine gas leaked from the unit.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

The India Pollution Map, a website project at the Centre for Development Finance (CDF), has tracked the government pollution monitoring regime and has mapped aspects of air and water quality through an online mapping tool. Data and information directly received from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) have raised some insightful questions about the depth and quality of information available on pollution in the country. Findings from a pilot level mapping exercise undertaken as part of this project for the states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu indicate that the information architecture necessary to make targeted responses for action falls well short of expectations of civil society.

To take a specific case, the project mapped the data from the industrial air quality monitoring carried out by the TNPCB during the year 2009. The data has shown that most industries seem to be compliant with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) standard. However, civil society experience in places like Cuddalore and Mettur seems to suggest that disturbing levels of pollution are still being witnessed.

A recent news report of an acid leak in the Cuddalore SIPCOT industrial estate provides credence to this argument. So issues about accuracy and asymmetry of pollution data and quality of information about how much is in excess (in quantities that are above standards) and how much of it needs to be controlled are still unresolved.

The primary reason for this situation is that data from the National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP) is largely based on conventional air quality monitors which monitor only criteria pollutants, while infrastructure for monitoring of specific industries and industrial clusters is still to take off in a substantive manner.

A Parliamentary report in 2008 highlighted the poor pollution monitoring infrastructure and the lack of sufficient online monitoring to track emissions more systematically. This translates into a lack of capacity for understanding the distribution of newer and more toxic pollutants in turn creating a fundamental lacuna in generating comprehensive air quality information.

In this background the proposal by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to introduce an air pollutants trading system seems inappropriate and premature. The MoEF through a discussion paper “Towards an Emission Trading Scheme for Air Pollutants in India” has mooted the introduction of a permit and trading system for air pollutants from industrial sources on the lines of the cap-and-trade mechanism used for greenhouse gas emissions. The system is an attempt to secure better compliance by leveraging technology and harnessing markets.

The MoEF's paper cites recent improvements in Tamil Nadu's monitoring systems symbolised by the Care Air Centre for online monitoring of pollution from industries, and initiatives of a few other states like Maharashtra and Gujarat but this does not justify initiating a national level scheme as many other concerns still remain.

One such is the poor implementation of standards. The revised NAAQS has only recently been introduced and industry and government are yet to monitor the new pollutants under the upgraded standards. At the very least, the new set of standards has to be fully implemented and the monitoring of all pollutants has to be operationalised before consideration of trading excess pollutants.

A further aspect that needs a critical review is whether or not market-based means of pollution control be effective in India? In the U.S., the air pollutants trading scheme was introduced in 1995 to mitigate the problem of acid rain by trading in sulphur dioxide. How much success have other countries had with such schemes? The MoEF needs to provide a more robust paper addressing the effectiveness of this system in tackling compliance.

Without doubt securing environmental compliance has been a challenge and India's approach to pollution monitoring and prevention requires fresh thinking. But India can ill-afford stand-alone expeditiously pushed schemes that presuppose that the house will be put in order. Unless the more fundamental questions of accuracy and depth of information are addressed, the introduction of a trading system is likely to get mired in controversy.

It is imperative therefore, that the proposed scheme is carefully considered and made widely consultative if the MoEF truly aims to gain the support and consensus of various stakeholders particularly those affected by environmental pollution and its impacts.

RAJESH RANGARAJAN &

SIVAPRADHA C.R.

(Rajesh Rangarajan is a Senior Researcher and Project Lead of www.indiapollutionmap.org at the Centre for Development Finance. Sivapradha C.R. is a Researcher with the same organisation. The views expressed are their own.)